Electrosurgical generators have long been used for the control of bleeding and for making incisions in major surgery. Currently, there are approximately 22 million surgeries conducted every year in the United States, and of those 22 million roughly 18 million are conducted using electrosurgical techniques. The use of electrosurgical generators requires that an electrosurgical pencil be interconnected to the generator. An electrosurgical pencil comprises an insulated handle with an electrode therein for passing an electric charge to a patient. The generator provides a source of electric current to the electrode of the pencil which is then used, for example, to cut tissue or coagulate blood.
Unfortunately, the use of electricity in a surgical environment has occasionally caused serious injury to the patient and the surgical personnel. When anesthetics commonly used were of a flammable or explosive nature, the uncontrolled emission of electric current often ignited the anesthetic. Since anesthetics are generally no longer flammable, the risk of their ignition has been greatly reduced.
It has been found that the use of an inert gas (such as Argon) tends to enhance, rather than merely insulate, the flow of electricity in electrosurgery through ionization of the inert gas atoms. Inert gas-enhanced electrosurgery allows coagulation without excessively drying tissue, and thus is a valuable surgical tool. However, gas enhancement is a substantially untapped surgical resource due to the lack of a device that combines the inert gas with the electric charge.
The current state of the art reflects the use of electrosurgery generally without the use of an enhancing inert gas, although there are a variety of types of electrosurgical generators and electrosurgical pencils currently available. The generators are typically separate units that are placed on tables or stands in the operating room. However, there has been no device that allows the adaptation of the existing generators for use with inert gas for gas-enhanced electrosurgery. One device (System 6000 by Birtcher Electro Medical Systems, Inc.) does combine an inert gas supply and generator for electrosurgery but does not generally meet the needs of the industry. Thus, there is a need for an apparatus to support an electrosurgical generator and allow inert gas-enhanced electrosurgery using an existing generator.